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17 November 2008

The 'Dadas' Have It

We've waited and waited and waited. Benny figured out the words for "light," "hot," "hat," "all done," "ick," and "uh oh" with relatively little coaching. He's even fairly well-spoken on words like "good" ("gu, gu, gu") and "meow" ("eow"), but getting him to say "mama" or "dada" has been a work in progress since he started babbling.

At six months, almost to the day, he began babbling by saying "dada" and Nate was pretty proud. "Mama" followed shortly thereafter, but the sounds never really meant anything. He wasn't calling us those names. Every night since then Nate quizzes Benny while he's taking his bath: "Benny, who is this?" (while pointing to himself). Benny has thrown out "dada" a few times, but nothing worth noting. But I think it's time to concede. The "dada" has it. Benny now refers to Nate as "Dada" when prompted. He doesn't do the same for "Mama." Tear.

Then again, Benny can locate several of my body parts and wants nothing to do with Nate. He points to mama's nose, knees, head... Speaking of body parts, that "Heads, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" song is pretty effective. Benny can now identify nearly every body part in that song, save for his shoulders and his nose. He even puts a new spin on it: He will point to, pull at, and otherwise acknowledge his pee pee when asked. I don't know where that came from!

All jokes aside, it's nice to summarize Benny's developmental progress. He's right on track as far as I can tell. That makes a formerly worried "mama" very happy!